Rolf Harris to be released from prison

Digital reporter

Rolf Harris is to be released from prison on Friday, a court has heard.

The Australia-born former television star, 87, has been appearing by videolink at Southwark Crown Court in London, where he is standing trial accused of indecent assault.

Judge Deborah Taylor told the jury on Thursday that the defendant would be released from Stafford Prison on Friday and he would therefore appear in court in person on bail for the remainder of the trial.

Jurors had previously been told Harris had already been convicted and sentenced for other offences in 2014.

The judge told jurors: "He (Harris) will no longer be appearing in the court via videolink and he will be attending what remains of his trial in person next week."

The trial, which opened on May 15, will not sit on Friday.

Former Animal Hospital host Harris is standing trial accused of indecently assaulting three teenage girls in the 1970s and 1980s.

He is also alleged to have touched a 13-year-old girl's breast after filming a children's TV programme and asked her: "Do you often get molested in a Saturday morning?"

He is separately accused of twice groping a third girl, aged 16, after being paid £100 to appear on ITV celebrity show Star Games in 1978, and telling her she was "a little bit irresistible", the court heard.

He denies four charges of indecent assault against three women between 1971 and 1983.